I was speaking to a friend recently and we started discussing laptops. Specifically, he wanted something to replace his desktop PC, which sported an Intel Core-i3 2100 Sandy Bridge CPU.

He was moving to a flat and didn’t have the space for a PC, but still wanted something with some grunt to edit photos and videos. He’d clearly given it some consideration, but I was shocked when he started quoting laptop specs and how he thought they’d be twice or even three times as fast as his PC.

Casting my mind back 20 years or so, I remember when hard disks were barely breaching the 1GB barrier. Even though programs at the time generally took up a lot less space than they do today, space was very much a premium.